


to start a million fires

by homsantoft (tofsla)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fighting As Foreplay, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Sparring, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 00:36:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6589588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla/pseuds/homsantoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian issues a drunken challenge. It goes further than he expects.</p><p>For the kmeme prompt: "Sure, they slept after a night of drinking, but for the sake of this prompt, Dorian challenged Bull: If you want to sleep with me, you have to beat me in battle."</p>
            </blockquote>





	to start a million fires

**Author's Note:**

> The loosest possible interpretation of "an ill-considered night after drinking."

To begin with, they were drunk, of course. Akvavit from chipped cups, and best not to ask the source; it was harsh stuff, not fragrant enough, but after the first mouthful these facts lost importance. It sufficed.

Flickering lamplight in the Bull's room turned what was left in the bottle to gold. Sera, sprawled across the bed behind them, had begun to snore softly.

In the Bull's hands, the cup he drank from seemed ridiculously small.

A lingering thought: the drag of those callused palms up the backs of Dorian's thighs.

His cheeks heated.

The Bull's leg was warm against his where they sat on the floor, the remnants of a chaotic game of cards spread before them.

Voices still rose and fell in the tavern outside.

"Hey, Dorian," the Bull said, a quiet rumble so unlike his public bravado. "You bothered by the flirting?"

A stillness in which Dorian held his breath, felt that his heart must be beating too loudly, filling the room. 

But why should the Bull not wonder.

"By the quality of it, certainly," Dorian said lightly. "As to the content—" 

He shrugged. 

"Aw," the Bull said. "Indifference? Damn."

"Are you teasing me?" Dorian asked, enunciation very deliberate with what he hoped was severity. His mouth seemed determined to smile.

"Same to you," Bull said. "Just so you know, I'll lay off if you say the word. No questions."

Dorian waved a dismissive hand, which smacked against the Bull's chest. He stared at it in hazy confusion, shook his head a little. "I simply wonder," he said, considered. "I simply _wonder_ —if you really think you can make good on all this talk of conquest, or if it's mere, mere—posturing."

"Oh," the Bull said. "I reckon I can."

Dorian considered this, and then, finding himself entirely too interested, considered it again from a different angle. The Bull had height, and weight, and a very large maul. He himself had heretical magics fit to scandalise the entirety of the South. It was possible, in fact, that he had the edge. But not probable, surely. 

"If you expect me to simply take you at your word," he said, "then I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken."

"You want a demonstration?" the Bull asked, brightening with interest. "I can do that. Uh, maybe not with Sera asleep right there."

Oh how tempted one could be. But there was also principle. He felt, at that moment, a little unclear of the point of principle; but certainly it existed. He had one. Several, possibly.

"I do," Dorian said. "I refuse to fall into bed with simply _anyone,_ you understand. Whatever you may think of me—"

"Hey," the Bull said, patting his knee with drunken fondness, "only good things."

" _Whatever you may think of me_ ," Dorian repeated, swatting the offending hand away. "If you intend to conquer me out of my robes, I must insist," here he took a dramatic pause, in which he raised a cautionary finger and also took the opportunity to drain his cup, "that you conquer me in them first."

"Uh," the Bull said.

"Beat me in the sparring ring," Dorian said, with gravity, "and I will consent to a closer acquaintance with your no doubt ludicrous cock."

 

 

It ought, of course, to have ended simply: an enjoyable tumble which wrecked their clothes, and then sex to follow up. In truth, Dorian could hardly fault his drunk self's logic on this point—one enjoyed certain things, and one might as well satisfying one's desires in several different ways at once, all while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability.

The first problem was the audience. This was not in and of itself insurmountable; Dorian could very well make a wonderful show out of losing, and there was nothing wrong with allowing people to underestimate one's strength.

"Are you quite sure," he said, with a superior little smile, a very studied mocking bow, "that you want to do this? I would so hate to break you, you know."

The second problem was the Bull, who laughed, rolled one shoulder, then the other. "You're worried about me. That's sweet." He adjusted his stance, settled his weight solidly. A look in Dorian's direction that was too knowing. "Give it all you've got, big guy. Don't hold out on me."

The third problem, and the most serious, was Dorian's own temper.

"You think I would let you win?" he said, with all the righteous indignation of one who had planned to do exactly that. "What _do_ you take me for?"

"Just checking," the Bull said. He was grinning, but not with humour; something fierce, that same look he had staring down a giant. 

Even over the general humming background of the busy Skyhold evening, certain sounds were clear. Wagons rolled heavily across the stones of the bridge. The wind tugged at the flags above the battlements: the dull thud of fabric pulling abruptly taut, the clatter of their ropes against the poles. Somewhere above them, Sera laughed, raucous. 

The summer sun, finally sinking, had turned the sky a delicate pink.

"Well then," Dorian said. "If you're quite ready."

The Bull nodded, settled his maul more firmly in his hands.

Sprang.

 

 

A rough fight, fast, the twist and turn of it a giddily exhilarating thing. Dorian, light on his feet, twisted to the side as the Bull's maul swept down, let a quick flash of lightning shock the Bull into losing his grasp for a moment so that he stumbled forward to keep a hold of the maul, slightly off balance. A moment only, but long enough to open a space between them, the space of a breath in which to become a bright burst of fire, give it form, substance, sending the Bull sprawling back away from the heat of it.

A gasped breath, another. The Bull, leaping forward through the flames as though entirely careless of them, barreled into him, followed him down to pin him to the damp earth of the yard. They panted with exertion, face to face, but it was not only the effort of it which made Dorian's heart race. The Bull's face—the heat of him—how easy it would be to simply allow it—

But Dorian was, in his soul, a competitive creature. And he had his staff still.

He smiled, lips parting. Saw how the Bull followed the movement, felt how one of the Bull's hands tightened against his shoulder. The Bull's knee was pressed between his thighs, so very close to brushing against his crotch. One need only shift a little. If one chose. Who besides the Bull would notice?

"Oh," Dorian said, gathered power to him, breathed it in, transmuted it, "I don't think so."

Breathe out.

The Bull tumbled back hard with a grunt of surprise or irritation.

Back and forth and back again. A powerful side-swing from Bull that glanced away, sliding impotently across the glass-smooth surface of the fade. A heavy sweep of Dorian's staff that the Bull leapt neatly back from, the blade-tip just barely stroking across his chest. A thin red line.

"Shit yeah." The Bull, wiping a hand across his face, flicking away sweat. That grin, still, again. "Shit, you're so fucking good. Come _on,_ show me more."

Dorian felt close to dizzy with the intensity of it, with how much he wanted—oh, what didn't he want—

He had not, certainly, intended to draw on any spirit, not here in the middle of Skyhold, in full sight of any number of chantry sisters; but it hung there, at the edge of his vision, begging for purpose. Temptation. The Bull had told him not to hold back.

" _Fuck_ ," the Bull said, gritted his teeth against the pain. The spirit curled around him, twisted at his arms. "You—"

"Yes," Dorian said, and knocked him down hard with the head of his staff. A little magic to speed his steps. A boot to the Bull's throat where he lay, without pressure.

"Yield," the Bull hissed. His eye was wide and dark. He swallowed hard. Was he—well, perhaps he was—

Dorian let all his magic snap away from him at once. 

The Bull slumped.

"I suppose," Dorian said, with a serenity he didn't feel, trembling with exertion and desire and frustration, "you're simply going to have to try harder, aren't you."

The Bull closed his eye, head thrown back against the ground. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "Honestly, it's pretty hard already."

 

 

Dusk gathered. They ate a late dinner in the emptying courtyard, sitting together against the outer wall of the tavern. Bread and stew, weak ale. Dorian let the ache of their fight settle into his bones, turned over the hot memory of the Bull spread on his back. That expression on his face, impressed and aroused.

"A rematch," the Bull said, "if you're not all done already."

"Do have the grace to let me finish my food, at least," Dorian said. "If you intend on beating me, I assume you'd be disappointed if I were to collapse before you could claim your prize."

"Hey," Bull said, "don't have to do anything you're too tired for. You should eat up anyway, though. Don't want to make it easy for me, right?"

"I begin to think," Dorian said, "that you're enjoying this rather too much."

"What, seeing how strong you are? _Shit_ yeah, I'm enjoying it. Your boot on my neck, that was hot."

"What a perverse creature you are," Dorian said, and looked sidelong up at the Bull: scar on his upper lip, patch over his ruined eye, the dark shadow of stubble along his jaw. Kiss me, he thought. Kiss me, please. 

But he had set the rules, and the Bull wasn't the type to ignore someone else's boundaries. A fine game, indeed.

"Does that mean you're not going to do it again?" the Bull asked, grinned.

"Another round, then," Dorian said, setting aside his bowl, and didn't hide his smile quickly enough.

 

 

No audience, this time. The footsteps of guards on the ramparts. Light spilling from the half-open tavern door. 

Their breathing became louder to fill the late evening calm. The clink and creak of their armour. Dorian grunted as the Bull knocked the wind from him with a bruising shoulder to the chest, fell back, down onto one knee, staff brought up to deflect the swing of the Bull's maul. The impact shuddered through him, pushed him back even where he knelt.

The smell of crushed grass.

Dorian rolled back and aside as the Bull came in for another swing, magic for momentum, the same sweep of power following through and up to tip the Bull's balance forward, sending him sprawling. Twice, then, and the third time would certainly find the Bull too quick to correct his centre of gravity. That ruled that trick out.

No words between them now, no need for that particular kind of show. Gritted teeth. Dorian's breath burned in his throat. A bruise spread along his arm, shoulder to elbow. A scrape along the back of his hand and up across his wrist oozed blood slowly.

How badly he wanted the Bull, just like this, brilliant and controlled and powerful. But how fierce, too, the joy of the fight.

On and on, until Dorian, too desperate to resist, met the Bull's eyes and, stage-stumbling, fell back against the ground and let his staff slip from his grip.

The Bull's maul thudded down beside him.

"Fuck," the Bull muttered. Kneeling above Dorian, he seemed larger than usual, stranger, expression shadowed. Dorian thrilled at it. "I told you not to let me win."

Gasped breaths. Kiss me, damn you.

"You have to do it _right_ ," the Bull said. An edge of a growl to his voice.

"You," Dorian said, sputtered, indignant, "you cannot be serious."

"Look, you started this," the Bull said, leaning in closer. A lopsided smile. But no mockery. What was it beneath the surface, then?

Dorian let his head fall back. Above him, the sky was clear, scattered with stars. Visus looked down upon them and saw their flaws; bright in the heavens and stark on the Inquisition banners.

"This," the Bull said, hesitated—something uncharacteristic in the uncertain tilt of his head. "I want—ugh, this is hard."

"Again?" Dorian asked, all innocence, humour for reassurance. "Goodness."

The Bull smiled, but didn't laugh.

"Once more," he said. Set his jaw. "Please."

Some significance to this. Such a peculiar intensity, part lust, part—what?

The Bull held Dorian's gaze, once more unwavering.

"It matters to you," Dorian said at length, slowly. "Why? You must know I would let you rip my robes from me this instant if you cared to."

"It just matters," the Bull said, stubborn to the last. "Will you?"

Dorian thought about it, about the stiffness of his body, the growing ache of the bruises spread across his skin. He thought about the feeling of the fight. The anticipation, the forward drive of it.

"Yes," he said. "Once more."

The Bull leant down to him. His breath was warm against Dorian's lips. 

"Thanks," he said softly. 

A kiss. Only a kiss. A brief press of lips, not quite chaste.

I begin to suspect, Dorian thought dizzily, that I may never be the same again.

 

 

They had reached the darkest hour of the short summer night, neither moon in the sky. In moments, the flicker and spark of Dorian's spellcasting illuminated the Bull's face, intent and fierce. Little finesse to their fighting now, power wrenched violently from the fade and slammed to earth, the Bull's swings losing the finest edge of that iron control he pretended not to possess.

Inevitable, perhaps, that they should tumble together to the ground, tangled, weapons lost. Inevitable that it should come down to this: the Bull's bulk and Dorian's agility, every scrap of knowledge he'd ever been given to keep himself alive with. _Too many mages, Dorian, are powerless without a staff; powerless, indeed, without mana. You will not be one of them._ Hardly the use Halward Pavus intended, and all the better for it. 

And oh, yes—the physicality of it, the heave of the Bull's chest against his, a hand rough on his wrist, moving to pin it. The delighted laugh he earned from the Bull by twisting sharply free. Had he thought they excited him, those earlier fights? Had he thought he knew how this would be, having watched the Bull charging into battle—having privately fantasized?

I am the punchline of some great joke, Dorian thought, but what a hazily distant idea that was. It did nothing to cut through the intensity of his arousal, his cock achingly hard against the Bull's thigh even as he tried to hook his foot around the Bull's ankle, twist him off balance. 

Their size difference worked against him, a useless scrabble. 

He found he didn't mind terribly. He minded still less when the Bull's hand pressed down on his bruised arm, setting him groaning in ecstatic pain. His cock jerked.

"Damn," the Bull breathed, "you love that—Dorian—"

A helpless laugh. "Oh, please don't imagine that I had you fight me entirely for your benefit. I may be—wonderfully altruistic—"

Finally, finally: the Bull, distracted, failed to keep Dorian in check.

Another tumble across the muddy ground, a brilliant flaring moment of heat with the Bull beneath him, oh, he was gorgeous, the rough lines of his face, the delicacy of his lips—

The Bull smiled. Threw him, Dorian's breath punched out of him.

The Bull's hand against his throat, and oh, the slightest flex of his fingers—a suggestion of a possibility.

"I yield," Dorian said. Was shocked at the hoarseness of his own voice.

"Oh yeah?" the Bull asked—that same rough quality to his words. His heart beat against Dorian's chest. His hand remained.

Dorian's own heart felt overfull. To swallow was to feel the slight pressure of the Bull's hand.

"Yes," he said. A shuddering exhale. "And what will you do with me, now that you have me?"

"Hmm," the Bull murmured. The sound rumbled through Dorian, a small earthquake. How close they were now—where did one end—but imagine, to be closer still—

The Bull's fingers flexed again against his neck, Dorian's blood beating against them, loud in his ears. The Bull's mouth—oh—

What noise was it that the Bull made against Dorian's lips? A strange, desperate thing. Something that Dorian had never thought to hear from him.

Yes, he knew he was desirable. He was aware that the Bull, in some unknowable way, desired him. And yet—

But the thought slipped from him. No space for anything but the immediate. I would let you rip my robes from me this instant, he had said earlier. How he wanted it, with unspeakable sincerity.

His hands were urgent on the Bull's huge back, along his sides.

"Hey," the Bull said, close enough that Dorian felt the movement of his lips. "You want to take this inside?"

A great many reasons to say yes. It one were sensible. If one were cautious.

"Oh, not yet," Dorian breathed. "If you dare stop, I swear to you—"

A fiercer kiss, the Bull's teeth on his lip, the slick clumsy slide of their mouths.

"Don't worry," the Bull said. "You'll get what you want."

 

 

Armour discarded, scattered around them. Already muddied leathers, the Bull's harness, the heavy belt. Dorian's thin undershirt pushed up his chest by the Bull's hand, sliding under it, so hot against Dorian's stomach. Against his ribs.

Dorian sunk his teeth into his lip to muffle his cry at the scrape of nails across his chest, the press of the Bull's thigh between his legs. Pressure against his cock, against his balls. Pressure against the bruises on his side, a wild flare.

In darkness, now. Anyone might be watching the courtyard; might have been attracted by their earlier noise, wary of danger. But what would they see? Dark shapes moving, perhaps. 

Surely little more.

The ground was cold against the small of his back, newly bared.

Kiss me.

The Bull, leaning over him, pads of his fingers rough against one of Dorian's nipples—kissed him.

A dizzy thing, overwhelmingly heated. The Bull's hand under his head, cupping his skull, guiding him. Nails on his scalp. Dorian cried out, body arching in search of more, more—his moan lost on the Bull's tongue.

"Fuck," the Bull groaned, the word damp against Dorian's mouth. 

His arms trembled against Dorian's shoulder, his side. His chest heaved. His cock was so hard against Dorian's hip.

Dorian laughed, amazed, giddy. "Is this all you have for me, after that performance?"

In truth, he knew there was exhaustion threaded through his own desperate battle-high. But no matter.

"Oh, no," the Bull said, low and dark. "Just let me have this." A deep breath through the nose, his head bowed to Dorian's, forehead to forehead. " _Savour_ it."

Dorian's breath stuttered into the next kiss. His arms tightened around the Bull's neck. 

How intensely, strangely real it felt: to lie with the cold ground below and the Bull's hot body above and to kiss, to touch—trace the shape of the Bull's shoulders, the oddly angled line of his clavicle beneath Dorian's thumb—some old break, hidden ordinarily by the bulk of his harness. To feel the shape of the scars on his back. Deep short lines. Daggers between the ribs.

We inhabit our bodies entirely, if only on occasion. A thrumming awareness. Heartbeat after heartbeat. Dorian could have laughed at the thought, he who trod these lines, bodies and spirits and life and death, every day. Was one one's body? Was one not?

He was his body now.

Satina rose. Silver light spilled shadows across the yard.

"Bull," he said. " _Bull._ "

"Not enough any more?" The Bull asked.

Dorian did laugh then, tight, the sound catching in his chest. "Of course not."

Greedy. Guilty. Always, always falling too fast.

The Bull's tongue against his lips, against his teeth. The Bull's hand, fumbling at laces, incidental brushes against Dorian's cock.

Then deliberate ones.

When they fucked, it was still half-tangled in their clothes. Still on the ground. Magic and sex was a risky prospect at times, but he chanced it to slick his fingers rather than moving, the Bull's sharply nodded permission a surprise. 

"In me," the Bull said. Another. There was certain reputation, a particular tone to the stories one heard—

"You," Dorian said. Groaned. "I thought—"

"Hey," the Bull said, "you want my dick, you've got it. Now, later. It's all—uh—it's all good. But I'd like—I really—fuck—"

A sense of subtext that it was beyond Dorian's powers, in that moment, to read.

"I'm not objecting," he managed. "Come here."

The Bull, kneeling across Dorian's chest. Dorian twisted two fingers inside him and felt the way the Bull's whole body trembled. Kissed the broad head of the Bull's cock. Repeated the motion. Again, again. The Bull gasped and gasped and gasped. Fuck, fuck, that's so—

The Bull's hand closed tight around the base of his own cock, as though he couldn't possibly have kept himself from coming any other way—absurd. Unsteady laughter.

So:

"Hand in my hair," Dorian breathed. " _Harder_." A hiss of pain. The Bull's other hand heavy on his shoulder, full weight on him. His head dragged back.

The Bull, hunched forward over him, clenching hot and tight around his cock. Shifting experimentally, a little jerkily. He panted, open-mouthed. Did he seem amazed? Fancy, surely. Vanity. One was magnificent, yes, but—

Dorian's nails dug crescents into the Bull's thighs.

What had he imagined? Wanted? To be stripped bare and fucked ruthlessly. Something as quick and rough and dirty as the fight. Something familiar, but better. Chest to the ground, the Bull's hand pinning his head in place, dirt against his cheek. To receive something like this instead—beyond imagining.

The Bull had always confounded his expectations.

"Oh, Bull," Dorian said. A drawn-out gasp as they moved together. He felt—oh, so many things. Try to smile. Be light. "Is this conquest, then?"

As well that the Bull had no answer for him, either his words or the treacherous faltering of his voice. His hand jerked in Dorian's hair. There, there, that angle.

Dorian reached for him, limited as his range of movement was. Wrapped a hand gently around one of the Bull's horns, stroked at the base of it. Drew the nails of the hand that remained on his leg hard along the front of the Bull's thigh. One could hardly hope to leave good marks on such thick skin. But one more thing to feel. Remember.

Which was it that punched the Bull's breath from him? It happened, as surely as the Bull had slammed Dorian's breath from his body as they fought. A shocked, amazed noise.

A wonder of the difference in their sizes, previously unconsidered: even like this, the Bull could kiss him—messily, on the mouth, the chin, the corner of his jaw, the Bull's breathing harsh. Dorian's heartbeat frantic.

No, the shift of their bodies was not terribly coordinated—not an accomplished thing, this. It involved none of the things Dorian prided himself on excelling at when it came to fucking. 

None, therefore, of the necessary distance.

Another shock, when the Bull came. A shock to see his face so transformed, to feel—

Oh, but it shouldn't have been a shock at all, should it?

Hard to hold the thought as they struggled, together, to find their equilibrium through the lingering, shivering tail of the thing; as the coldness of the night air began to matter again, cooled sweat raising gooseflesh across Dorian's arms.

"Damn," the Bull grunted against Dorian's neck. "Dorian—"

A space for a witticism. For self-defense.

"Yes," Dorian said. Watched Satina; watched the fading stars, losing clarity as the sky shaded deep blue, then pale along the horizon. How exposed one became. So quickly.

"Let me take you up to my room," the Bull said. "Get you warm. Show you a good time."

One might make excuses: he was a terrible mess, and it was much further to his own room than to the Bull's. 

One might say, with too much honesty, that one wanted to.

"Hmm," Dorian said, but with his hand soft on the Bull's face it was difficult to present any particular picture of reluctance.

"Got a bottle of rum," the Bull said. "Rivaini. The dark stuff."

"Yes," Dorian said, smiling. "To please you, then."

For a moment, he believed he had quite seriously misstepped. Something passed across the Bull's face, too quick to catch. 

"Dunno," the Bull said, smiled as easily as if the moment had never existed. "Think I'd rather be pleasing you."

 

 

Such an off-balance night. Like being young, like something one had only ever dreamed. Oh, yes, only sex—except—

Qunari, we love our friends, but we don't _fuck_ them, the Bull said once—when they were still in Haven, when it had seemed that they might save the world in short order. Drinking in the Singing Maiden, the Inquisitor and Sera and Blackwall, a central cluster around which the rest of the tavern moved. Only unacceptable people, rendered reluctantly acceptable by proximity to the centre of power.

We may fuck our friends in Tevinter, but we certainly wouldn't consider loving them, Dorian said, and thought himself clever.

They had not been friends then. Dorian would have fucked the Bull if it'd been offered discreetly enough, certainly; would have considered it a little fun, and neither of them would have found themselves on the edge of something dangerous, and that would have been that. Back to needling, and no harm done.

Rum burned in the throat, spread hot in the stomach. The same battered cups as ever. The taste of it lingered on the Bull's tongue.

Naked, they drank together. An awareness not only of one's own body, but of the Bull's too. Cleaned up, nominally. A thing Dorian considered it unlikely he would ever admit, the fascination he felt wiping his own come from the Bull's skin—pressing careful fingers to the Bull's hole, the mess he'd left there, and feeling the Bull shiver.

That had been some time ago, now. It was far from morning, but the sky had grown light all the same.

The Bull put the bottle aside, placed his empty cup beside it.

"You want more? Going to let me do it right?"

Dorian raised an eyebrow. "Are you insinuating that my performance was unsatisfactory?"

A huffed laugh. " _Shit_ no. I just—" The Bull's great shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Wasn't what I was planning on doing. You think I don't know how you've been angling to ride the bull?"

"Ah, how transparent I am," Dorian said. Shoved lightly at the Bull for the terrible line, a matter of principle rather than a lack of appreciation. "Still, I can hardly blame you for getting carried away by my magnificence."

"Yeah," the Bull said, and before Dorian could consider the nuance of the word he was being kissed again, laid back on the bed. "This good?"

"Oh, yes," Dorian said. Stretched, arched, showing himself off. "Yes. Please."

Had one not in all honestly been conquered the moment the first fight began, the sex that followed would have seen to it, the Bull so deep inside him, so overwhelming around him.

But he had known it would be that way. 

 

 

Dorian had long made it a habit to wake in his partner's beds whenever he could safely do so; a small thing, something to hold onto in the face of the impossibility of relationships. Quiet morning moments, half-asleep. Soft and slow, by their very nature.

The Bull shifted, turned, and arm curling around Dorian's waist to pull him closer against his sleep-warm body. And Dorian, barely awake, breathed him in; settled into him, settled into the ache of his own body, shoulder against the bed, hip complaining as he shifted his leg to hook his ankle around the Bull's calf. The rise and fall of their chests. Shouts from the yard, distant.

"Fuck," the Bull murmured. Touched Dorian's face, the mess of his hair. "You sure are something."

Dorian laughed. "Oh, yes," he said. "But what?"

And meant: what are we?

Not yet an urgent thought, in that moment. Not right there, not satisfied and sore and warm. 

No answer, in any case. No map for this. Only: we are. We exist, we were here. 

Living, breathing, tangled together.


End file.
